LED Strip Multi Effect Controller with Arduino Nano and EasyEDA

Today I will show you how to make a LED Scroll Bar as shown in the image above. It will flash ten LED strips in different effects by using a control board.

Required Components

LED strip, Arduino Nano, Dupont line and a control board.

So, how to make a LED Scroll Bar?

Step 1) Preparation

Cut the LED strip into 10 pieces and each piece may have arbitrary number of LEDs.
Then, weld the traverse at an interface of the LED strip. Here I prefer to use Dupont line to connect.

Step 2) Design

Make a control board. Using the control board to control the flash pattern of LED strips. Aided by Arduino Nano and equipped with a keypad, we can make the LED strip flash in different patterns.

Step 2.1) Start with Designing Schematic

To design my circuit, I chose a free online EDA tool called EasyEDA which is a one stop design shop for your electronics projects, it offers schematic capture, spice simulation, PCB design for free and also offers high quality but low price Customized PCB service. There are a large number of component libraries in its editor, so you can easily and quickly find your desired parts.
You can access the following schematic diagram through this link
Notes: The voltage of the LED strip is 12 V and Arduino Nano is 5V. Please remember to add a power regulator such as AMS1117-5.0.

Step 2.2) Create the PCB Layout.

You can see the PCB layout in the following diagram:

Step 2.3) Make a sample

After completing the design of PCB, you can click the icon of Fabrication output above. Then you will access the page PCB order to download Gerber files of your PCB and send them to any manufacturer, it’s also a lot easier (and cheaper) to order it directly in EasyEDA. Here you can select the number of PCBs you want to order, how many copper layers you need, the PCB thickness, copper weight, and even the PCB color. After you’ve selected all of the options, click “Save to Cart” and complete you order, then you will get your PCBs a few days later.

Step 2.4) Take delivery of the PCB

When I received the PCBs, I am quite impressed with the quality, they are pretty nice.

Step 2.5)Welding
It is very easy to make a control board. Just as the following picture described, as soon as the components are welded, it is completed.

Step 3) Connection

Connect the LED strip to the control board and at the same time please pay attention to the positive and negative of the terminals.
As the picture showed below.

Step 4) Download a program

Making your own LED Scroll Bar creates a lot of fun, and the results can be very rewarding. Hopefully this article will help you make a LED Scroll Bar, You can also write a program to make the LED strip flash in the way you like.